And there are several others. Each have advantages, disadvantages and prices ranging from zero to ten dollars or so.

I recommend either Chaneru (Particularly the version that is currently available to all in beta and free until it goes live) or Roksbox. (Using Apache as a server) Of those Chaneru is the easiest to setup.

So far i have not been able to find a good quality streaming for streaming from pc to roku/DLNA devices. I have had a DLNA setup in my home for a while now. So streaming is not new to me. Bought a roku to add internet/and sling movies to a old tv. When i first setup my DLNA server i found Mezzmo to be the best at transcoding and worked with ALL of my dlna devices and lots of great transcoding no matter what format your video was in. Roku just will not see dlna:( So i'm forced to start my search for a true media server again.

Plex has some good features for the roku. But the transcoding is horrible. Streaming from pc to roku issues. audio not in sync with video <this issue started with the last update. so maybe they will fix what they broke soon? internet content streams fine but in house networking it has issues?? strange i know...Plex right now is like a bandaid ok to cover the wound but the bandage is going to fall off soon and you will be back to square one. Plex has bad issues with not being seen on dlna devices. plex only shows up on 2 of my dlna devices out of 5 and when you stream to a dlna device its horrible. even in native dlna format mp4

Play To. Is another app for this the demo is very very limited. they do not give you enough demo time to test it on multi devices. They let you stream like 5 videos or some crap like that and then your done. have no clue how people can test different formats with different devices that way? transcoding was about the same as plex from what i can tell but i'm unwilling to buy it to see if it works. But i will say the play to server did show up on all my dlna devices

Play on. Really close to play to but with about a 400% up in price But added the ability to actually record from netflix and other services. and Again the transcoding really sucks for local pc streaming. also recordings are in very poor quality.

If mezzmo would get off there butt and make a roku app mezzmo would take and put them all to shame. They know how to do on the fly transcoding very well.

But i would start at the top with plex its the cheapest. Also should note that Play To and Play on had no issues showing up on my other dlna devices unlike plex.

Roku is NOT a DLNA device and your results streaming any content other than that which is in a Roku compatible format will be problematical at best.

You can try http://www.chaneru.com/UPnP/ but even that will rely on transcoding to play any file that is not in the correct format. Chaneru uses VLC on the streaming computer for transcoding.

It is easier to simply convert your media files to a Roku compatible format and avoid transcoding all together. The process can be automated several ways and be run when the computer is not otherwise engaged.

First let me say that my wife and I love Roku. I am interested in streaming from my pc to my tv so I tried Plex yesterday and while it worked it was continually reloading with long time lapses so I stopped the program. I have read the posts in this here so my questions may seem redundant but not with the problem I am having. Nothing specific to this problem has been mentioned. Other than constant reloading I have no problem with plex so far.

Has anyone any ideas on why this would happen? Netflix works fine, with my setup, with occasional reloading and most of the Roku channels work ok some do reload more than I would like. But back to this issue.

questions

1. Have you ideas on how to make Plex work more efficiently? 2. Have you experienced this problem as well? I see that video format is important so knowing which format works best would be helpful.3. Have any recommendations and experiences for other channels which might not have this problem?

I am only interested in movies and tv shows so I do not care about music or pics.

Thank you for any help you may be able to provide but please keep in mind that writing for newbies like myself with details and terms we can understand will help most.

@tfrost2002: The Roku streams Plex best using "Direct Play" with H.264 videos wrapped in a .mp4 container. If not, the Plex server on your PC/Mac will have to transcode [convert on the fly] the file for it to be natively supported by the Roku box. It's quite CPU intensive so if you have a bunch of stuff running on the PC, it may affect how the Plex server performs.

I'm a bit confused with this Plex.. I downloaded software onto my MAC and now have a plex application, but also When I went on Roku it told me to put a pin into a website, so I also have a link on my bookmark bar which says "Plex it". Do I need the app AND the website? Also, I have a couple of things on my Plex cue, but when I go into Plex on Roku it says nothing in cue. Help please

I'm a bit confused with this Plex.. I downloaded software onto my MAC and now have a plex application, but also When I went on Roku it told me to put a pin into a website, so I also have a link on my bookmark bar which says "Plex it". Do I need the app AND the website? Also, I have a couple of things on my Plex cue, but when I go into Plex on Roku it says nothing in cue. Help please

thanks!

Hi David,

With Plex, it's main purpose is to stream your media files from your Mac [I'm a Windows guy] to your Roku box. After installing the software to your Mac, did you set up your Plex media library? It's like pointing the software to your media files so it can then share it over your network. For the "Plex it" function, you need to sign in to your Plex account for the Roku app to work. I have Plex running on a Windows PC so I can't give you any first hand info how to do stuff on your Mac, sorry.

I have been trying out Playon for one day now and I have to say I'm quite impressed. I normally stream from my PC to my hacked ATV 1st gen but get tired of having to get up and switch the headphone output back to the Roku late at night when I'm laying down. I have had no problems whatsoever with loading videos in with Playon and my dvd's whether Video_TS or iso load in and play perfectly with no issues whatsoever. I have a wired setup so perhaps that's why. Only things I don't like so far is the thumbnail generator needs some serious work which I found a workaround, and most importantly you cannot access any menus on DVDs (which is why I'm not too crazy about converting). It just plays the whole thing straight through. No chapters, episode options, etc. at least I haven't figured out how to access them. That's not going to work for me otherwise I would gladly pay for this software as it is super smooth and fast. Plex is nice and easy to use but as mentioned the transcoding is absolutely terrible and I don't have the time to convert everything to mp4 plus I like menus on some of my DVDs. So far Playon has loaded in everything I've thrown at it with ease and incredible speed (MP4, XVID. DIVX, AVI, ISO, VIDEO_TS/IFO, H.264)